Bewkes to give keynote speech

Time Warner topper heads lineup at Royal TV Society's confab

LONDON — Time Warner topper Jeff Bewkes is to deliver the keynote address at the Royal Television Society’s one-day international conference.

Bewkes, chair and CEO of Time Warner, heads a line-up that also includes Elisabeth Murdoch, who runs “super-indie” Shine, and Dr. Suk-Ho Bang, president of KISDI, Korea’s top broadcasting and telecommunication think tank.

Another speaker is Gerhard Zeiler, leader of European broadcasting giant RTL.

The talking shop, held at London’s Barbican Centre Sept. 28, is entitled “Doing It” and will focus on successful digital content exploitation.

RTS president Peter Bazalgette said: “This is a stellar line-up, a veritable around the world in 80 bytes.

“We have secured the view from one of the top five content players in the U.S., from South Korea, the world’s most advanced broadband nation, and the view from Europe, both from content players like Elisabeth Murdoch and broadcasters such as RTL and the BBC.”

Also featured at the confab will be the U.K.’s new media minister, Jeremy Hunt, British web heads David Abraham, who recently took over at Channel 4, Dawn Airey, CEO and chair of Five, Adam Crozier, the new CEO of ITV, and BSkyB COO Mike Darcey.

The BBC’s director-general Mark Thompson and the head of Virgin Media Neil Berkett will also speak.

U.S. players represented at the talking shop include NBC Universal’s international prexy Peter Smith and Disney’s London-based director of channels, EMEA, Giorgio Stock.